**4. Grapes and ripeness**

The grapes are clustered into berries, and each cluster is made up of two distinct parts: the stalk (the woody part) and the berries (the fleshy, edible part). The stalk is composed of a main axis, the rachis (longest branch) that is attached to the peduncle, and shorter branches, the pedicels, which support the berries and provide them with water and mineral salts [44, 45].

The berry, in which the edible part corresponds to the pericarp, is the complex of tissues that surround the seeds, being constituted by three layers [10, 44, 45]:


#### **4.1 Fruit growth, development, and ripeness**

The process of berry development and growth has been the subject of numerous studies, it seems to be consensual that it is characterized by a double sigmoid curve, divided into three distinct stages that report to periods in which specific changes occur in berry development [44, 46, 47]:
